This was written when we dwelt in the Parsonage at Grasmere. The
principal features of the picture are Bredon Hill and Cloud Hill
near Coleorton. I shall never forget the happy feeling with which
my heart was filled when I was impelled to compose this Sonnet. We
resided only two years in this house; and during the last half of
the time, which was after this poem had been written, we lost our
two children, Thomas and Catharine. Our sorrow upon these events
often brought it to my mind, and cast me upon the support to which
the last line of it gives expression--

"The appropriate calm of blest eternity."

It is scarcely necessary to add that we still possess the Picture.

PRAISED be the Art whose subtle power could stay
Yon cloud, and fix it in that glorious shape;
Nor would permit the thin smoke to escape,
Nor those bright sunbeams to forsake the day;
Which stopped that band of travellers on their way,
Ere they were lost within the shady wood;
And showed the Bark upon the glassy flood
For ever anchored in her sheltering bay.
Soul-soothing Art! whom Morning, Noontide, Even,
Do serve with all their changeful pageantry;
Thou, with ambition modest yet sublime,
Here, for the sight of mortal man, hast given
To one brief moment caught from fleeting time
The appropriate calm of blest eternity.